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Black and Hispanic individuals are more likely than white Americans to be hospitalized with severe COVID-19, but researchers have found the disparity may be due in large measure to

socioeconomic circumstances.  Factors like income, household size and neighborhood density played a role in who was hospitalized. In a study published in _Annals of the American Thoracic

Society_, researchers found the odds of testing positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 was 3.3 times higher for non-Hispanic Blacks and 2.8 times higher for white Hispanics — and the

risk of hospitalization was 4.8 times greater for non-Hispanic Blacks and 3.8 times greater for white Hispanics — compared with non-Hispanic whites. Black Hispanics were not included in

these figures.  But using neighborhood-level U.S. Census Bureau data, the researchers found that socioeconomic factors were responsible for much of the disparity. Median income was an

underlying factor in 27 percent of the cases with higher odds of testing positive; household size in 20 percent; and neighborhood density in 17 percent. “The associations between

race/ethnicity and test positivity or hospitalization were not as strong once we adjusted for these socioeconomic factors,” study coauthor Hayley B. Gershengorn, M.D., an associate professor

at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said in a statement. ‘STRUCTURAL RACISM’ DRIVES HEALTH OUTCOMES No racial or ethnic difference in mortality or other outcomes was found

for those hospitalized, but the researchers noted that the sample size was too small to draw a definitive conclusion. Improving socioeconomic conditions may help balance racial and ethnic

disparities found with COVID-19 (and likely other similarly spread diseases such as influenza), but Gershengorn acknowledges that “we still have structural racism in this country that likely

drives many health-related outcomes for minority people.” The study was based on data collected from 15,473 Miami-area adults who were tested for SARS-CoV-2, including 295 who were admitted

between March 1 and July 23, 2020, at the University of Miami Hospital and Clinics. White Hispanics accounted for 48.1 percent of the participants, 29 percent were non-Hispanic white, 15

percent were non-Hispanic Black, and 1.7 percent were Hispanic Black. _Peter Urban is a contributing writer and editor who focuses on health news. Urban spent two decades working as a

correspondent in Washington, D.C., for daily newspapers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, California and Arkansas, including a stint as Washington bureau chief for the _Las Vegas

Review-Journal_. His freelance work has appeared in _Scientific American, Bloomberg Government_ and _CTNewsJunkie.com_._